You Can't Take Manny Pacquiao to the Bank

Not after Saturday night's loss. Not ever again. The fight of the century has been stolen from us. But whose fault is it?

"This could be one of the big moments of your life; don't make it your last."
—John Dillinger

LAS VEGAS — He was a robber-baron. Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao — Manny, the PacMan, the Congressman of Sarangani — built his empire across eight weight divisions, against 15 opponents, maybe three of whom ever stood a chance, and that's why he never lost to any of them, over seven years: Because his power was to set his own stakes, so that he was always stable, so that the next thing would always be greater, and yet impossible for him not to control. Manny Pacquiao was unhurtable.

He was a bad robber. Good ones don't show up late. He is the greatest boxer in the world, of course, but Pacquiao — welterweight champion of the world, as of 9 o'clock on Saturday evening here, at least, after stealing his last fight from Juan Manuel Marquez — was lost in the MGM Grand. Literally, they couldn't find him for the ring walk. A little extra work on the calf muscles, apparently, so he wouldn't cramp up against Tim Bradley. And Bradley was the one who got visibly hurt — the robber hit him hard enough for a twisted ankle on his right foot and a fracture on his left. That's because Tim Bradley isn't and will never be as good as Manny Pacquiao — or Floyd Mayweather, for that matter, not that it would matter but by 10 o'clock or so — and because the defending champ moved fast as soon he arrived on the scene. He threw a half-dozen punches when he used to throw a dozen, yeah, but anyway he was in control and that was all that was supposed to matter.

He was robbed. Pacquiao started each round slow and finished them all fast, raising an impossible bar for an impossible upset all the way till the twelfth, when the people rose to their feet because it had been a good fight between two of the greatest boxers in the world… even if they weren't the two greatest. And then in the corner before that last first bell, the trainer Freddie Roach told the best boxer in the world to finish this guy off, the way they had set it up. Nobody was really worried that the thing was close, so when the last last bell rang and Bradley wasn't on the floor, I yelled around the front row maybe a little too loud: Anyone got this guy winning? And then the scorecards: split decision, one of the worst in history — down goes fairness. Pacquiao was pretty relaxed about it, really ("your son is going to be a great champ," he said to Bradley's father; "something wasn't right," Roach said after), and that is the problem with Manny Pacquiao: He kills you with kindness because he can and no one else does; he's not a killer because he's supposed to be.

They robbed us. Floyd Mayweather is in prison, but he has fought — and won — ten times between Pacquiao's last two losses, and, well, he has never lost, although he has also never faced Pacquiao. They were both running out of fights, and so they were supposed to fight each other, and it was to be the greatest fight since Ali-Frazier. But it was a desperate wish from fans of an aging sport to see two aging men — Pacquiao is 33, Mayweather is 35, and every outside whisper around the practice gyms say they are slowing down. It's not going to happen now, not anytime soon, because the only thing worse for a boxer than jail is boxing purgatory, and promoter Bob Arum said as much on Saturday night when he said that if he could even schedule a Pacquiao-Bradley rematch, "no one will go."

He robbed himself. Before he lost the power in his fists this weekend, Manny Pacquiao lost the power of his control. He has always had a god complex, but lately he has been doing his Tim Tebow thing and hanging out with Rick Warren and calling his entourage his disciples and selling his cockfighting farm and giving up gambling, for chrissakes. He has done all of this to be as much a better man as a better boxer. And so when it was over he was graceful in the prison of his own defeat: "I don't even remember if he hurt me with one punch," the old champion said of the new, and he didn't remember hurting himself either.

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